


What Happens When One Meddles Like an Old Man

by crazyreader12



Series: What Happens When Meddling Old People Are Part of the Equation [1]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crew as Family, Dimension Travel, F/M, Gen, Old People Meddling, Some angst because Tarsus IV, Tarsus IV, Time Travel, Transporter Malfunctions Galore, but mostly lighthearted, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-05-04 02:45:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 19,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14583219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crazyreader12/pseuds/crazyreader12
Summary: Or, Admiral Kirk just wants to leave the Nexus already, Dr. McCoy hates ion storms (but this time only because they landed him in with the wack-job Romulans) and wishes that his best friend would stop giving him a heart attack, Ambassador Spock finally has that emotional reaction to bring the house down, and most of the reboot crew is very confused. AU Rated mostly for language.





	1. I Want to Meddle Like the Old Man I Am

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys, this is my first time posting on Ao3, and for those of you who go on both websites, yes I'm the same Crazyreader12 from fanfiction.net, and yes this is the same story. I'll be updating on both websites more or less in tandem.
> 
> This is an au of the 2009 movie starting just after Jim and Scotty beam up to the Enterprise. My Generations fix-it :o)
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy :)

Admiral James T. Kirk was highly annoyed. He was supposed to be dead. He was not supposed to be back in the goddamned artificial contentment of the goddamned Nexus. And now he sounded like Bones. Just great. He should be in the afterlife, or whatever happens after you die, with Bones, and maybe Spock if he wasn't still alive, and the rest of his crew. Not taking out his frustration out on a fake woodpile with a fake ax next to his fake cabin on this fake planet. The next stroke of the ax went halfway into the stump as Jim let out a yell of frustration.

Stupid wood. Stupid Nexus. Stupid him for getting himself stuck here in the first place. He wasn't even sure how he'd gotten back here after he died outside of it. Jim was well and truly stuck. Which was not acceptable. He didn't believe in no-win scenarios. Another thought struck him and he felt like banging his head on the wall of the cabin for not thinking of it sooner.

Maybe I can get myself out.

After all, Picard, the new captain of the Enterprise, had virtually wished himself out. There was absolutely no reason why Jim couldn't do the same. That left the problem of where do I wish myself to? Where indeed. It had been seventy eight years since he'd 'died' so Bones would be dead by now, along with the rest of his command crew, except perhaps Spock. There was always the chance that given the Vulcan life-span, his old friend was still alive. Now all he had to do was concentrated on Spock, and maybe... Admiral James Tiberius Kirk vanished from the Nexus for a second time.

* * *

 

Ambassador Spock gave a small sigh as he looked to the transporter pad where the younger versions of Jim Kirk and Montgomery Scott had just vanished. The sight of this new version of his old friend was both gratifying and saddening. That was not his Jim. Spock was stuck here. This universe where Vulcan was gone, and Jim had never known his father as a result of his failure of epic proportions.

To make matters all the worse, he was alone in this new timeline. He felt the absence of his friends all the more acutely now that he was in a place where they still existed, and yet were not they as Spock had known them. They were completely lost to him now, Dr. McCoy and J- A voice interrupted his thoughts.

"Well someone looks like their puppy's been run over." Came an all too familiar voice from behind the Ambassador. Spock turned, and for just a moment, pure shock flitted across his features. For standing there, looking just the same as when he'd left was-

"Jim." This was impossible, it defied all logic, and yet here he was.

"Hey Spock. Would you mind pinching me?"

"Pardon?" Asked Spock, raising an eyebrow.

"Pinch me," Jim repeated, "Otherwise I have no way of knowing if this is real or not. Where I've been, there is no pain, only artificial contentment. So, pinch me."

Spock, acting on autopilot, pinched him on the arm. Jim yelped, then grinned, punched the air and did a happy dance.

"Ha! Take that, you stupid Nexus! You've lost your hold on this old captain, and you're never getting me back!"

Spock, who was still attempting to get over his shock, put a hand on Jim's shoulder, halting his happy dance.

"Jim," he said, "I must admit that I am at somewhat of a loss as to how you are here. I see you, I am currently touching you, and yet... I do not understand how this can be possible."

Jim gave him a smile and put his own hand on Spock's other shoulder. "You have and always shall be my friend Spock. Just as I have and always shall be yours. I'm real, I promise you that, old friend."

"Jim," Spock said again, with emotion that surprised even him, and to Jim's obvious shock, Spock put his free hand on the admiral's unoccupied shoulder and drew him into a tight hug. Jim hesitantly hugged him back, and Spock could tell that he was somewhat disconcerted at the amount of emotion that Spock was currently displaying. His control was slipping, and they both were aware of that fact.

"My God Spock," Jim muttered, "how long have I been gone? What's happened since then?"

Spock pulled back, and held up his hand to his friend's face, silently asking for permission to initiate a meld. Jim nodded, and Spock's fingers found the meld points.

In the meld, Spock showed Jim what had occurred after his supposed death. As Jim had apparently hypothesized, the rest of his friends were all gone, and spock shoved down the highly illogical hope that any of them might turn up. It would not do to give Jim false hope.

Dr. McCoy had been lost around five years after Jim in a transporter accident due to an ion storm. When an alternate version of the doctor had failed to make an appearance, he was assumed to be deceased. Two years later, Uhura'd vanished during one of Mr. Scott's experiments, and he'd followed soon after, sucked into a black hole in a shuttle while trying to figure out how to get her back. This was also how the exact properties of red matter had been discovered. It was more than three decades after that, when Chekov was killed during a diplomatic mission gone sour. Sulu went peacefully in his sleep ten years later, leaving Spock to be the last of the command crew alive.

Then, Spock showed Jim Romulus being destroyed, Nero and his thirst for vengeance, the black hole, Spock coming through it just to find Nero waiting for him, and being stranded on Delta Vega. Vulcan's destruction, the overwhelming feelings of guilt and grief, finding a younger Jim about to get eaten and saving him. Being told that the younger versions of himself and Jim hating each other and being shocked, going to the outpost and giving a younger-Scott his equation for transwarp beaming years early. Watching the younger versions of Mr. Scott and Jim beaming away to save the world, and lastly Jim, his Jim, beaming at him and requesting to be pinched.

In return, Spock received from Jim everything that had happened to him. Finding himself chopping wood at the cabin and Jean Luc Picard finding him after what had been only minutes for Jim, but seventy eight years for the rest of the world. Leaving with the new captain of the Enterprise, helping to save the world again, getting crushed by the bridge and thinking that now at least he'll be joining his friends.

Finding himself back in the Nexus and being furious because hadn't he just gotten away from this artificial world? Remembering how Picard had gotten them both out and picturing Spock on the off chance that he'd still be among the living, the bolt of pure, unadulterated relief that shot through him when it worked.

I grieve with thee, was passed between them as the meld ended.

There was a moment of silence, then a grin broke out across Jim's face. This was the kind of grin that (not that he'd ever admit it) made Spock nervous, because it meant that his friend was up to something.

"You gave Scotty his equation for transwarp beaming?" he inquired a touch too gleefully, "And told me junior to take command of the Enterprise?"

"That is correct," Spock told his friend, and he would've gone on to explain his really very logical reasoning behind his decision making, but Jim resumed speaking.

"Well, now, it's my turn!" Jim pronounced all too cheerfully.

Spock raised an eyebrow. "I beg your pardon?" he asked.

"I want to go meddle like the old man I am. The time stream's all ready whacked up, so what could possibly go wrong?"

Spock opened his mouth to tell Jim what all could, exactly, go wrong, and in great detail, but Jim apparently guessed what he was about to say, and continued talking before a single word came out.

"If you get to do it, so do I," Jim persisted stubbornly, "I want to be back on my Silver Lady again, even if it's just for a little while, and I at least get to tell them to blast the Botany Bay when they find her."

Spock sighed internally, knowing that if he refused to accompany his stubborn friend, Jim would simply go anyway.

"Very well," he most definitely did not sigh, "Let us go 'meddle like old men."

* * *

 

Montgomery Scott had had a, let's just say, interesting day. There he was, minding his own business on that godforsaken outpost, on that godforsaken ice planet. Then came the highly irregular Vulcan guy from the future and the lad, who apparently needed to take command a starship. This is because, as he finds out, Vulcan was now a black hole, most of Starfleet's graduating class is dead, and apparently weird-Vulcan-guy-from-the-future knows him.

And also the equation for transwarp beaming that another version of Scotty apparently invented. And as if that wasn't enough, when he and the lad (Jim Kirk was his name) and he beamed aboard the Enterprise (one fine ship, she was) he ended up in a water tube and nearly died. Just brilliant. Then, Scotty got thrown into a batshit-crazy-but-also-ingenious plan to take down the batshit crazy Romulans from the future.

And now this. He's just successfully beamed away Jim and the Vulcan that he'd emotionally compromised, Commander Spock. Within a second of them disappearing, two new glimmers began to materialize on the pad. One materialized without a hitch, but the other kept flickering, and a third appeared flickering in and out. Finally the second and third disappeared completely, and left the first on the pad.

"Wha' the bloody hell, was tha'?" Scotty demanded of the elderly Vulcan who remained. "An, wha're you doin' here? Ah thought you were stayin' on Delta Vega?"

Uhura and McCoy both looked at him like he'd grown a third head. "You know this guy?"

"Aye, he's the one who gave me mah equation, ya know, fer transwarp- oh, sorry." Scotty cut himself off with an apologetic look to the Ambassador.

"It is quite all right, Mr. Scott," the Vulcan reassured him, "An old friend of mine turned up, and he wished to do further 'meddling'. However, he seems to have been misplaced, and I, too, am most interested as to how this has occurred."

Scotty cleared his thoat. "Righ'. Well, if Ah dinnae know better, which ah do, by the way, Ah'd say that the malfunction was the result of an ion storm, but-"

The Ambassador held up a hand. "Say no more, Mr. Scott," he interrupted looking contemplative, "I believe that I may have a theory as to what has transpired. I will look into it. However," the Vulcan glanced around, "I believe that you all need to get back to the bridge to be ready to assist your acting captain and your Mr. Spock. I believe that, given their absence, they are currently aboard the Narada?"

Scotty thought that there was something a bit off in something that he'd said, but he didn't have time to think about that now. The old Vulcan's words had galvanized the Doctor and the Lieutenant into action and they almost ran to the turbo lift. Deciding that if he had to explain, he most certainly wasn't doing it alone, Scotty grabbed the Ambassador's arm and dragged the Vulcan along with him.

* * *

 

Nyota Uhura was confused. She'd never seen a transporter behave in such a way before, and the Vulcan that had materialized was even more mysterious. He looked like an older version of Spock. In fact, if Nyota hadn't just met Sarek, she would've assumed that the elderly Vulcan was Spock's father.

Added onto that, was the fact that he had apparently given Mr. Scott the equation for transwarp beaming. That, along with Scott's surprised words, meant that he'd been on Delta Vega. What had this Vulcan been doing there in the first place? Nyota was also very curious as to how, exactly, one's friends randomly 'turned up' on ice planets and managed to convince a Vulcan to come with them to 'meddle'. She knew first hand just how stubborn they could be.

Nyota exited the turbo lift onto the bridge, and hurried to her station, ready to receive the word that Kirk and Spock were ready to be beamed out. At the same time, she kept an eye on what was happening. Scott had somehow managed to manhandle the Vulcan elder on to the bridge (Nyota suspected that the Vulcan'd let him) and Dr. McCoy was now staring at him with his arms crossed.

"So," the Doctor said, "You're the one who got Jim back on this ship from the ice planet the hobgoblin stranded him on?"

Nyota could swear that the elder's eyes had begun to twinkle the moment that McCoy said the word, hobgoblin. Strange.

"That is correct, Doctor," he said, "and while I do have a story to tell, I believe that it might be better told after I am able to locate my wayward friend. If I am correct in my theory, than-"

What ever he was going to say, Nyota never found out, because at that moment, from inside the Vulcan's parka, came the soft found of someone singing.

The elder's eyebrow rose and his eyes seemed to twinkle all the more, as he took out what looked like an antique radio out of his pocket. The voice was singing Row, Row, Row Your Boat witch, had the whole situation been any less baffling would have made Nyota laugh. She was jerked out of her musing when the Vulcan spoke into the radio.

"Have you lost your Vulcan mind," he said in a complete monotone.

McCoy's eyebrow shot up and he looked at Nyota. She shrugged. She had no idea why any Vulcan would say such a thing. Not to mention that she distinctly recalled the Doctor saying exactly the same thing, albeit with much more inflection, to Spock, after he'd marooned Kirk.

"That would be illogical," a grumpy voice snapped back, happily, if such a thing were possible. More bewildered looks all around.

"Doctor," Vulcan said, his eyes still twinkling, "I am...pleased... that my hypothesis regarding the transporter mishap appeares to be correct. Is-"

The 'Doctor' interrupted him. "Ya, he's here with me. We landed on some wacko ship with these crazy Romulans with tattoos, so we had to barricade ourselves in someone's quarters. The doors are clear for some reason. I dunno why, but-"

"Doctor," the elder interrupted calmly, though he did look faintly alarmed. This, Nyota could understand. It sounded like this Doctor guy, and the other person with him were aboard the Narada.

"Right, sorry," grumble the Doctor, then he shouted, "Hey, get over here, I've got the hobgoblin on the line!"

Both of Dr. McCoy's eyebrows shot up to his hairline, and Nyota blinked in surprise. Puzzle pieces were beginning to arrange themselves in her mind. The way that the phrases these two men used (the first baffling interaction, Nyota realized must have been some sort of password system) so greatly mirrored that of Doctor McCoy and Spock. And what Spock himself had said about Nero, and the possibility that he came from the- but no. That was impossible. Wasn't it?

What was said next gave Nyota her answer.

"What are you doing?" asked the Doctor. There was the very faint sound of a door sliding open, shutting, and locking. "Just where do you think that you're going?" he demanded, and Nyota realized that he was talking to whoever was on the Narada with him.

The Vulcan elder looked vaguely concerned. There was an inaudible response and the Doctor exploded.

"What?! No! Have you lost your goddamned mind?! JAMES TIBERIUS KIRK, GET YOUR ENTERPRISE LOVIN ASS BACK IN HERE RIGHT NOW! THIS IS NOT THE DAMN TIME FOR YOUR GODDAMN HEROICS, YOU MORON, YOU ARE NOT A STARSHIP CAPTAIN ANY MORE! YOU'RE TOO OLD FOR THIS, YOU'RE GONNA GET YOURSELF KILLED! ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME?! JIM! Goddammit." The last but was muttered, and he proceeded to his continue his rant but muttering it.

Nyota occasionally picked up tidbits like: that idiot, ...get himself killed, and :...believe he locked me in here, damnit.

The bridge had gone dead silent, everyone staring at the elderly Vulcan, and the radio in his hand. Dr. McCoy was the one to break the silence.

"What in the the blue blazes is going on here?!"

Nyota thought that summed up her thoughts rather nicely.


	2. I'm Glad That I'm Here, But Romulans, Really?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should probably explain the whole radio thing . It was this idea that I had where I thought that it would be cool if the elder Kirk, Spock, and McCoy had this kinda-secret radio thing which they can use to contact each other when communicators aren't available. (Obviously this will have been after Kirk got Admiral-ed). Row Row Row Your Boat is how they alert each other that they are being called because of that one scene in Star Trek: Final Frontier when the three of them are camping and they sing it. The person who answers the call's password is something that the person that is calling them says to them frequently. Like, I was originally going to have old-Jim be the one calling old-Spock. Spock's password in that case would be 'the needs of the one out-way the needs of the many' (at the end of Wrath of Khan). Jim's password to Spock (which I kind of incorporated) is 'I have been and always shall be your friend'. Hope that clears that up for anyone who was confused.
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy this chapter! (btw, if any of you have read this on ff.net, I'll be posting the chapters that are already up on there more or less daily until I get to what I'm currently working on, and them they should get updated at roughly the same time :)

Dr. Leonard McCoy was extremely annoyed. Those idiots on the ship from which he had been going to beam down to Earth from had neglected to mention to him that the 'minor disturbance' had been a goddamn ion storm. Minor disturbance his ass. Ion storms were not minor disturbances and they had the nasty habit of causing transporters to drop you in to alternate universes. How did he know that this is what had happened to him?

Well, that would be because he was most definitely not on Earth enjoying his retirement, and his dead best friend was picking himself up beside him. Leonard decided against getting up, and let his head thump back down on to the ground.

"Damnit," he muttered, "I was supposed to be done with all this. Damn all ion storms to hell."

Jim (not Jim, another version, your Jim's dead, Len reminded himself) whirled around from where he'd been taking stock of their surroundings.

"What the- Bones? What are you-? Oh, right ion storm" after that oh so enlightening statement, Leonard was hauled to his feet. This gave him a rather unfortunate view of the tattooed Romulan coming their way.

"Oh no, RUN!" Bones shouted grabbing not-his-Jim by the arm and dragging him out of the Romulan's line of sight. Up to right behind another Romulan. Now it was not-his-Jim who was dragging McCoy along as they ran as fast as they could (which, for a pair of old men, was pretty quick). By some miracle they managed to not get seen and captured (or killed), and Leonard finally saw what looked like a crew-man's quarters and dragged them into it.

"Can you lock it from in here?" he asked, out of breath.

"Yeah," panted not-his-Jim, and proceeded to do so. They both flopped, breathing heavily, to the floor, and for just a moment, it was almost like- but no. It wasn't, no matter how much he might wish that it was.

"Ugh, I'm way too old for this," McCoy grumbled, letting his head bump against the wall for a moment, and then to not-his-Jim, he said, "Look, I know what this looks like, and believe me I wish that I was, but I'm not-"

"My Bones?" not-his-Jim asked, "Actually, I'm pretty sure that you are. My Bones that is."

Leonard shook his head. "I'm pretty sure that I'm not. Look, I'm sorry. Ion storms have this nasty habit of-"

"Landing you in other universes. I swear that mine has no bearded Spock. Though," not-his-Jim added as an afterthought, "there are two of him here. And me. And you."

Leonard rose his eyebrow. "How the- you know what, never mind. You can't be the Jim from my universe because my Jim is dead, has been for five years. End of story."

Not-his-Jim threw his hands up in the air. "How much is it going to take to convince you Bones?!" he asked exasperatedly. "I know what you guys thought, but I never actually died. I thought I was going to but it turns out that the Nexus is this weird temporal rift thing that kept me in its artificial contentment for like seventy-eight years. Then I got out, with some help, and then I was sure I was actually dead that time, but I woke up in the damn thing again, and got my self out. Not to mention that you're supposed to be dead too, I'll have you know."

Leonard stared at him, brain attempting to process this new tidbit of information. "The Nexus," he repeated.

"The ribbon thingy," can't-be-his-Jim explained.

"And it didn't kill you." He was starting to think that just maybe, especially knowing his best friend, that it just might be possible that-

"Nope. I really am your version of me Bones."

"Prove it." He was this close to crushing maybe-his-Jim-after-all in a huge hug, and he was going to make sure that it was the right Jim before doing that, damnit.

"Uh, well, lets see. Oh!" maybe-his-Jim-after-all now looked absurdly pleased with himself. The feeling that this was the Jim from his universe increased. Of course Jim probably got that look whatever universe he was from.

"See, when I got out of the Nexus I pictured Spock because that's how you get out, picturing where you want to go, and he's the only one that I thought could possible still be alive. And anyway, he melded with me so that we could exchange stories faster, an he told me that you 'died' in a transporter accident due to an ion storm on your way to Earth around five years after the Nexus sucked me in, so how do you explain me knowing that if I'm not- oof!"

McCoy cut off it's-really-his-Jim-after-all, with a massive bear hug. If a few tears slipped out in the middle of his damnit Jim's and his I swear, if you ever do that to me again's, well, he could always claim brain scrambling. Jim hugged him back, and after a few seconds of reveling in the fact that this was really his best friend, right here, he pulled back.

"So, where are we, exactly?"

This launched as quick of an explanation as Jim could muster of what, exactly, had happened before he'd shown up in this alternate timeline.

"So, we're stuck on a ship full of batshit-crazy Romulans hell-bent on revenge?"

"That about sums it up."

"I need a drink."

"Mm."

Just then something occurred to him. "The hobgoblin's here."

"Uh, yeah? What does that have to do with- oh."

Leonard smirked at him as he held up his radio. "I should have him in a few minutes."

"Got it." then he stood up.

"Ah, Jim?"

"Bathroom."

"Ah." As Jim went to do his business, Leonard turned his attention to the radio.

Part of a call, and a full blown rant later, Leonard was still muttering about idiot admirals who insist upon haring off on adventures that they have no business with. Then something rather unexpected came through the radio:

"What in the blue blazes is going on here?!"

McCoy instantly stopped muttering.

"Ah, Spock?" Funny. He could swear that he heard someone sputtering on the other end of the line.

"Yes, Doctor?" he sounded almost resigned.

"Where, exactly, are you?" He had a bad feeling that he knew exactly who all had just heard this entire call.

"On the bridge of the Enterprise, Doctor."

"Of course you are," Leonard muttered, and then louder, he asked, "And I've just announced to the entire bridge crew, including my younger self, that we are from an alternate future, haven't I?"

"That would be correct."

In the background, he heard someone, most likely his younger self grumble, "I need a drink."

"You and me both, kid," he growled, "My God, but this is weird. I'm way too old for this."

"Jim does not seem to think so," the infuriating hobgoblin on the other end remarked dryly.

"Well, I'll have you know that, unlike Jim, I, happen to have more than a pinprick of self-preservation. Jim's never going to admit that he's too old for this, which he is." Goddamn fool, he added silently.

"Quite so. Might I ask what, exactly, he has done now?"

McCoy growled. "He saw the younger versions of you two running by, said something about you helping his younger self, so he gets to help out your younger self, ran off, and locked me in here."

"I see."

"He's an idiot. He should've at least taken me along with him so that I can make sure he doesn't get killed."

"Indeed."

"You can beam me out of here right? And Jim?"

"Aye, that we can," came a voice from the background.

"Thanks," he muttered to the younger version of Scotty. He was about to say more, but a figure limp-running past the door cut his eye. That was most definitely the younger version of Admiral Idiot.

"Hang on Spock, I just saw Jim Junior." He went to the door and banged on it.

"Hey, you over there! Think you could let me out?"

As younger-Jim made his way back, a faintly amused voice sounded from the radio.

"I believe that you said something about being too old for adventures, Doctor."

"Oh, shut up hobgoblin," he cut the connection just as the door slid open.


	3. Who the Hell Are You?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was fun to write, so I hope you guys enjoy reading it :)

Jim stared at the vaguely familiar grumpy old man who, up until a moment ago, had been locked in some crewman's quarters. Which, for some reason, had a transparent door. What kind of ship had clear doors on the quarters? Whatever.

"Who are you?" he asked.

The man pocketed his- was that a radio- before walking out of his cell. He did a double take at the sight of Jim's face, which he thought was a little unfair. He knew that he was a little beat up, but it couldn't be that bad, right? Instead of answering Jim's question, which he thought was rather rude, the man grabbed his chin and started looking him over.

"Hey!," Jim batted at the hand, "Cut that out, who the hell-"

The man's strangely familiar grumpy glare silenced him. He then pulled what looked like a med-kit except somehow more advanced off of his belt.

"Hold still," he grumbled, and then proceeded to dab some cream on Jim's bruises.

"Ow!" Jim jerked his head away, and glared at him, even as the pain receded. "You didn't answer my question," Jim reminded grumpy-man irritably.

"How the hell did you manage to do all this to yourself, kid?" grumpy-man asked, completely disregarding his comment.

"Two Romulans and an emotionally compromised Vulcan," Jim snapped getting annoyed, even as the sense of familiarity grew stronger "Who the hell are you and what are you doing-"

"What d'you mean an em- you know what? I don't want to know. I'd love to tell you who I am, but don't you have something to be doing? And you're welcome, by the way." Grumpy-man was still glaring at him, with what almost seemed like fond-ish exasperation.

Jim scowled. For just a moment, he'd completely forgotten about Pike, and now he was mentally berating himself for it. He had a job to do, and he couldn't just get distracted like this, no matter how strange his day had been.

"Thanks," he muttered grudgingly, and then grabbed the guy by the arm and started dragging him in the direction he'd been going in before. "You can tell me on the way, I highly doubt that it'll be weirder than anything else that's happened to me today."

"Pushy, pushy," the man grumbled, almost goodnaturedly. "I got here by way of a transporter accident, since you want to know so badly, and- let go of my arm dammit, I'm a doctor, not a horse, I can walk on my own."

The familiar phrase made Jim stop dead and he stared at the man. The familiarity that had been hounding him when he before was now in full force as he now realized just who this man reminded him of. Bones. But that was impossible. Then again, he had just met an older version of Spock...

"Who are you?" Jim asked again, and then reminding himself that regardless what revelations may come along the way, he had a Captain to rescue, he resumed running.

"I think you've pretty much figured it out for yourself kid. I know that you've got a good brain, not to mention that you've already met someone like me." the man told him as they ran.

"Well shit." that pretty much confirmed his suspicions that this was an older Bones, but it still didn't make any sense. "What kind of transporter accident lands you in a different universe?" he asked.

"Ion storms," came the greatly aggravated reply, "It's happened before, although I don't think that I'll have to worry about anyone getting assassinated this time around."

"Assassinated?" Jim asked incredulously, "What kind of universe-" but Jim didn't get to finish his question because that was when they found Pike. Jim doubled his speed and shot the Romulan guarding Chris as Old-Bones puffed along behind him.

Jim undid the restraints as fast as he possibly could, and helped his mentor up.

"What are you doing here? And who's he?" Pike asked groggily.

"Just following orders sir. He's... a long story."

"Thanks a-" Old-Bones started cantankerously, but it changed to alarm as he shouted "watch out!"

Jim was too slow to react, but Pike grabbed his phaser and shot at something behind him. He turned just in time ti see the Romulan who'd been about to kill him fall dead to the ground.

"Thanks."

"Anytime son. Let's get out of here."

Jim whipped out his communicator and yelled into it, "Enterprise now! Three to beam-"

The rest of the sentence was lost in the swirling of the transporter beam.

Meanwhile

Jim mentally cursed his older-than-was-great-for-running body as he followed the younger versions of himself and Spock. He needed to be able to keep up with them, and although he didn't plan on getting spotted just yet, being able to see the two much younger men was vital to being able to follow them.

Finally they slowed in front of a fairly small white ship and went inside.

The Jellyfish. Jim remembered it from his meld with Spock. Somehow, the old admiral managed to get inside without being seen, and waited for his younger counterpart to leave.

"Fascinating" Jim heard Young-Spock murmur after him Junior left.

Startup sequence initiated the computer says, and Jim decided to reveal himself.

"He's right you know," he told the younger version of one of his best friends. "This'll work."

Young-Spock stood up inhumanly fast, assuming a fighting stance facing Jim.

"Easy there!" Jim lifted his hands up in an I-mean-no-harm gesture. "I'm a friend."

"Who are you?" Young-Spock demanded calmly.

Scanning, scan complete, came the voice of the computer, causing Jim to start and Young-Spock's eyebrow do a little surprised jump, Admiral James Tiberius Kirk, welcome.

Now Young-Spock's eyebrow raided in earnest.

"Admiral James Tiberius Kirk?" he inquired.

"That's me," he said cheerfully, "I believe that my younger counterpart just left."

"How, exactly, have you come to be aboard this ship and this timeline?"

"A wacko space anomaly, and a transporter mishap." Jim cut Young-Spock off before he could demand a more detailed explanation, "All of which I'll be happy to explain to you once we've finished here. I want a jab at Nero, he's a grade A bastard."

Young-Spock gave him a look which told him that this conversation was not over, and then went back to his chair and took off.

They'd only been flying for a couple seconds when they were paged by Nero.

"Spock, I knew I should have killed you when I had the chance."

"I hereby confiscate this illegally obtained ship and order you to surrender your vessel." Young-Spock informed him.

"No terms", Jim added gleefully, "What you shouldn't have done is destroyed Vulcan, Nero. It makes Spocks and Jims angry. And then we start blowing stuff up. Specifically, you."

Young-Spock gave him a strange look, and Jim was reminded that he and him-Junior don't exactly get along.

"Who the hell are you?!" Nero growled.

"I'm sure you'll find out," Jim told him, and then cut the transmission. "C'mon, Youngster. Let's blow this ship to hell."

Young-Spock gave him a look of savage approval, and threw himself into the piloting of the vessel.

They're being chased and then shot at, but Jim wasn't thinking about that. That look Young-Spock had given him... it contained far more emotion than his Spock would have ever allowed himself to show at this point in time. Then again, this Spock had just had his planet completely obliterated, and his mother killed by Nero. He was out for blood, and Jim couldn't blame him in the slightest.

All the same, it did worry Jim somewhat for Young-Spock's mental state. He'd have to make sure that he was meditating enough, but not completely shutting himself up after this was over. Which brought up another interesting point: Young-Spock's comment about Lieutenant Nyota Uhura. It seemed that they were dating, which was a very interesting development indeed. He wondered what had changed.

He was still pondering when the transporter beam swallowed him and Young-Spock up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter should be up tomorrow, hope y'all liked it. Comments always welcome :)


	4. Let's Blow Him Straight To Hell!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, back again, here's the next chapter :)

As he re-materialized in the transporter room on the Enterprise, Spock gave an internal sigh of relief. Kirk had Pike, and he was alive. With them was an older man that Spock didn't know, and wondered at what he was doing here. The man, as soon as he'd given a suspiciously good-natured glower to the elderly Vulcan in the room that looked entirely too much like Spock, and a flat out glare of Admiral Kirk, took Pike from Kirk.

Then, he looked at Dr. McCoy, and snapped, "Well, what are you waiting for?! Let's go get him treated!"

The Doctor glanced at Kirk, and when he nodded, shrugged and took the other side of Pike.

"We've got 'im Jim," he reassured Kirk as they took Pike, presumably to medbay for treatment.

Over his shoulder, the older man shouted to Kirk over his shoulder, "As soon as we're out of surgery, you had better get your ass down to sick bay. Neither of us is above making you!"

Spock reassured himself that Pike was in good hands, but, however illogically, (this seemed to be a theme for this day, he thought) seeing how 'beat up' he seemed to be, Spock could admit to himself (barely) that he was worried for him. There was no time for this however. There was a job to finish.

The next few minutes were a blur of rushing to the lift, and updates on the condition of the Narada, and then Nero was on the screen glaring at them.

Admitting to Kirk that logic wasn't something he appreciated in this situation affected him less than he'd like to admit, but he didn't have time to dwell on it because Nero had spotted the elderly Vulcan who, along with Admiral Kirk, had come up to the bridge with them.

"You," he snarled with more hatred than he'd shown Spock, which he hadn't previously believed to have been possible. "I left you on Delta Vega."

"Apparently, Nero," the Vulcan replied, "the twenty five years you have spent in the past waiting for me has damaged your memory. You forget about the advantages of transwarp beaming."

So this, it seemed, was Ambassador Spock, his older counterpart from a future now lost forever. And it seemed, he had something of a sense of humor. Of course Spock himself did, but he would never let it be seen so openly.

Before Nero could stop spluttering in total rage, Admiral Kirk stepped up to the screen.

"You're an idiot, Nero," he told him, "to think that, in a universe where any version of myself, and my crew, still exists together, you could've brought an end to the Federation. Apparently you don't pay much attention to your history books."

Fascinating. It would seem that as much older as the Admiral was, he was still just as cocky as his younger counterparts. Apparently, there were inter-universal consistencies.

Nero growled at him. "Admiral Kirk, I recognize you now. Are you really such a fool to think that the Federation could survive such total devastation to one of your founding members?"

Spock let out a noise that he would never admit to being a snort. Kirk clearly was not the only arrogant one in this conversation. "Clearly Nero, you know nothing of resilience in the face of loss. The Federation, and the Vulcans that remain will carry on, so have with you the knowledge that you have failed."

Nero snarled at him and opened his mouth, but Kirk, the younger, cut him off. "Judging from the fact that you have not accepted our offer of assistance, I'm just gonna take it as a no. Sulu, arm phasers, let's blow this bastard straight to hell."

"Yes sir."the Pilot grinned, and Spock had the savage satisfaction of seeing the ship that had destroyed his home and his mother crumple and get sucked into the black hole.

"Let's go home Sulu!" Kirk shouted.

"Yes sir!"

Spock noticed however, that despite Sulu's actions to take the ship out, they were still being brought closer to the monstrosity that had swallowed the Narada.

He looked to Kirk and saw that he was just as confused as he. Why were they not moving away?

"Why aren't we at warp?!"

"We are, sir!"

Kirk growled and hit the button to contact engineering. "Get us out of here, Scotty!"

"You bet your arse Captain," came the decidedly unprofessional voice of Mr. Scott, "Captain, the gravity of well's got hold of us!"

"Maximum warp, push it!" He looked angry, and yet, as the engineer's voice came back, saying that he couldn't give her any more power, Spock thought he detected a flash of fear. Maybe he wasn't quite so foolishly fearless as Spock had previously believed him to be.

"All she's got isn't good enough!" Kirk shouted, "What else you got!"

"Eject and detonate the warp core," came the two voices, in perfect unison, of Ambassador Spock and Admiral Kirk. Up to this moment, both of them had been rather strangely quiet after the Narada had been destroyed. The entire bridge crew turned to stare at them, Spock included. Eject the warp core? What could they possibly hope to achieve by doing that?"

After a brief moment of silence, Mr. Scott's voice came back over the comm. "Aye, that might work. Captain?"

"Do it, do it, do it!" He shouted, half standing from his chair.

The shock wave that followed both threw Kirk back into the chair and pushed them away from the black hole.

Kirk and his elder counterpart both gave shouts of relief, Misters Sulu and Chekov excitedly hugged each other, as Nyota beamed at him. Spock allowed his shoulders to slump slightly and he glanced at his counterpart to gauge his reaction.

He was smiling. It was slight, barely there, but it was most definitely a smile, and Spock found himself in conflict as whether to be appalled at the show of emotion, or envious at how comfortable with them his elder self seemed to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, as always comments are greatly appreciated :)


	5. What do You Mean Almost Assassinations?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ack, sorry it's late, but here's the next chapter :)

Leonard McCoy was thoroughly exhausted. This entire day had been a goddamned roller-coaster of craziness and time travel and death, and all he wanted to do was go to his quarters and sleep. Possibly forever.

But first he had work to do. Those thrice damned Romulans had wreaked total havoc on Captain Pike and Jim was counting on him to fix the man. Thankfully he had help that came in the form this old man who Leonard was fairly certain was the older version of himself. Which was very, very, weird.

Luckily, Leonard quickly found out that there were some pretty big perks of having a future you for a helper: a: he knew what to do with the damn slug in Pike's brain, and b: they were pretty much on the same page as far as thoughts on how to operate and what to do when. They finished the operation in about half of the time it would have taken Leonard on his own with one of the ship's nurses.

Still, the damned thing took several hours, and by the time they were done, both McCoy and his older counterpart were ready for some hard core R&R. Sadly, there was still the matter of all of the people from the future, and how they'd gotten here do discuss. This was why, still in their bloodstained scrubs, both McCoy's made their way to a conference room.

Just as they were about to leave, his older self grabbed him by the shoulder, stopping him.

"Wait," he said, 'I almost forgot."

Leonard raised an eyebrow. "Forgot what?" he asked.

"Your Jim's a mess," he was informed. "He said something about two Romulans and an emotionally compromised Vulcan? I get the Romulans, but I'm not entirely sure what he was talking about with the emotionally compromised-"

Leonard cut his counterpart off as he went rooting around for his Jim-proof medkit. Damn kid was allergic to most of the normal stuff. "I do. It was the pointy eared bastard. Jim might've provoked him, but the way he response was completely uncalled for. Green-blooded hobgoblin."

"You mean Spock?" Leonard stalked back over to see his counterpart looking completely shocked.

"No," he replied with biting sarcasm, "It was the other half-Vulcan XO. Of course I mean Spock." With that, he marched right past the older version of himself and right on in to the conference room.

To his surprise, not only were Jim, Spock, and their respective counterparts seated at the table, but also the rest of the current command crew. Interesting.

"Bones!" Jim smiled at him tiredly from across the table as he pulled out a chair, "About time you got here! Come sit down."

One look at his best friend's face was enough for Bones to figure out exactly why his elder counterpart had told him to bring along a med-kit. Jim's face was a mass of bruises, and his neck was turning purple, which explained how hoarse he was.

"Good God man!" he exclaimed, practically running around the table and yanking open his medkit. "You look like someone's been doing a line dance all over you!"

Leonard got out a hypo, prepared to press it into his best friend's neck, and then huffed. There was no damned way that he would stick a hypospray in Jim's neck the way it was.

"Damn hobgoblin," he muttered, and lightly pressed it into the idiot's shoulder instead.

Jim patted his arm, "Wasn't just him Bones. I think that it must've been 'Let's Choke Jim Day' or something, because Nero and his first- ow! Will you stop that?!"

Bones had stuck the next hypo in considerably less gently, which would have to suffice until he could get Jim into Sickbay and then he sat in his seat. To his annoyance, everyone in the room (save the guys from the future who were smirking), was staring at them like they were a goddamned circus act. He glared at them, and most of them suddenly found the table extremely interesting, to which McCoy smirked.

"Captain," the hobgoblin interjected, "I apologize for my role in your injuries. I realize that my actions were totally out of line-"

Jim waved an arm to cut him off, "No they weren't, I completely deserved it, it was what I said that was completely out of line, and I'm the one who should be apologizing. Anyone with eyes could've seen that what I said wasn't true. I'm sorry."

"I accept your apology," Spock said looking supremely uncomfortable, "nevertheless, I should not have attacked you, and for that I apologize."

The entire table, Bones included, had been watching the pair of them like a tennis match, but now A. McCoy spoke up.

"I, for one, want to know what the hell you two are talking about. When, exactly, was Spock attacking you?"

"Does this have anything to do with the 'emotionally compromising Spock to take command of the Enterprise' thing by any chance?" A. Kirk added.

Spock's eyebrow shot up. "I beg your pardon?"

Jim frowned at his elder counterpart. "How did you know about that? And yes. Yes it was."

A. Kirk grimaced. "I thought as much. And I was on Delta Vega before the Narada, so..." he trailed off tapping his head meaningfully. Jim got an ohhh, right look on his face and nodded.

"Anyone want to tell the rest of us mere humans what the sam heck y'all are talkin' about?"Leonard demanded.

His counterpart, from across the table closed his mouth like he' been about to ask the same thing. Which he probably was, realized Leonard with a jolt. Well that was more than slightly disconcerting.

At the same time, both Kirks turned to look directly at A. Spock, who, unless McCoy's eyes were failing him, actually looked vaguely uncomfortable. Huh.

A. Spock cleared his throat. "Yes. That alteration was more or less my fault. Andyoung Jim was referring to the mind meld I preformed on both him and his elder self."

Now everyone was staring at him. McCoy wanted to know just what a mind meld was and how it pertained to Jim, but there wound be time enough for that later when he could corner the elder Spock on his own.

"How so?" Spock asked.

Leonard would never admit it in a million years, but he's just been wondering just the same thing.

A. Spock cleared his throat again. "I-may have suggested that young Jim here make you show that you were emotionally compromised so that he could take command of the Enterprise. Although, I didn't intend for there to be a fight."

Jim looked embarrassed. "Er, well that's my fault I guess. I-uh...couldn't think of anything else that would make him lose control, and... it was not a good thing to be saying. Also, like I said, anyone with eyes could've seen that it was untrue, so..."

"What did you say to make him attack you?" A. Kirk wanted to know.

The command crew exchanged uneasy looks. They'd all been there, after all, and frankly, it wasn't really something that any of them, including Leonard, particularly wanted to be thinking about. After a few moments of silence, Spock finally answered.

"The Captain ah-suggested that I had never loved my mother."

A. Kirk whistled lowly and A. McCoy grimaced. A. Spock's mouth twitched in what was almost a frown.

"She did not make it off of Vulcan." It wasn't a question.

Spock shook his head, and A. Spock bowed his. At this minute, something appeared to dawn on Jim.

"Wait just a minute!" he exclaimed, pointing at A. Spock. "You lied to me!"

Hobgoblin the younger stared at him, eyebrow raised. "You must be mistaken. Vulcan's cannot lie."

"No, I'm not mistaken." he said emphatically. "He told me that he wasn't coming back with me to explain, and that I could not, under any circumstances, tell you, Spock, about his existence in this timeline, because the universe would end if I did."

Now everyone was staring at A. Spock. God, this whole conversation was giving McCoy a headache, and it had barely started.

"I did not." A. Spock said firmly, but when Jim opened his mouth in outrage, he said, "I...implied it."

Jim was now doing an excellent impression of a fish.

"You sneaky Vulcan bastard," McCoy said, somewhat in awe, "I didn't know that you could do that."

There was an almost smile on the elderly hobgoblin's face.

"He can also exaggerate," Jim Senior put in, "and say part truths."

"Yes," agreed A. Spock.

"Another thing," Jim broke in. "What is with the almost getting assassinated in another alternate universe?"

K. Kirk snorted and looked at A. McCoy, who shrugged, looking totally unrepentant.

"What the hell do you mean almost getting assassinated in other universes?" McCoy demanded. This was just getting weirder and weirder. He really needed that drink.

"That's what I want to know," Jim muttered.

A. Spock stared fixedly at the table, and his friends exchanged eye rolls in unison.

"It's not your fault, Spock," they intoned.

Before anyone could even begin to try to figure out what the hell that was supposed to mean, the whine of a transporter filled the room. A somewhat elderly woman in a red star-fleet uniform materialized, and promptly threw up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope y'all enjoyed, next chapter should me up tomorrow. 
> 
> Also, to any Rick Riordan fans, if any are reading this, have any of you read the Burning Maze? I read it over the weekend, and I haven't recovered yet.


	6. It's a Long Story

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am a terrible person who never updates when I say I'm going to. Holy crap, I am so sorry that this took so long. Here is the new chapter now, finally!

Spock (Junior)'s POV

The elderly human woman in the red uniform vomited violently as all three of dimension-travelers lept to their feet. Spock watched them curiously as they ran to assist her. The elder doctor McCoy rubbed her back and gently pressed a hypo into her neck that Spock suspected was an anti-nauseant as A. Kirk patted her arm and Spock's elder self stood nearby waiting for her to regain composure. She straightened up, and the brief glimpse of her face that Spock caught before she turned to the Doctor and did a double take was very familiar. Unless Spock was very much mistaken, this woman was an older version of Nyota Uhura.

"D-Doctor McCoy?" The woman sounded shocked. "I thought-?"

"Jim here tells me that both of us were subject to transporter mishaps, Commander. That's the last time you ever willingly participate in a transporter experiment, I bet."

She gave a soft laugh. "Yes, I do suppose it i-, wait a minute did you just say?"

Admiral Kirk tapped her shoulder, grinning, and she spun around. "Hi there Commander Uhura" he said impishly.

Spock heard Nyota inhale sharply beside him, and knew that should he look in her direction, her expression would be shocked.

"Cap- I mean Admiral, how?"

"Perhaps you should take a seat so that we can explain what has occurred more thoroughly to all." Spock's elder self cut in gently.

The woman blinked a few times, clearly attempting to make what sense of her situation that she could, before turning to the table, at which point her eyes (brown like his Nyota's but still different somehow) widened, and her jaw dropped.

"Transporter accident." she said, a little breathlessly. "Right." She fell into a chair, and blew out a deep breath before seeming to collect herself. "Given the lack of bearded Spocks and crop-topped me's, am I to assume that no one is in immediate danger of getting assassinated?"

Not entirely sure what to make of that sentence, but remembering Acting Captain Kirk asking something about assassinations previously, Spock simply raised an eyebrow.

A. Kirk chuckled as his younger counterpart threw his hands in the air, then winced, lowering them gingerly. "Seriously, what is with the assassination talk? I want an explanation!"

Doctor McCoy scowled, something he seemed to have a talent for, and said, "I do to. And what was that about bearded Spock's and crop tops?"

Admirals McCoy and Kirk were now full out grinning, and Spock's elder counterpart's lip seemed to twitch. Spock dearly wished that the unbidden visual that that gave him would leave.

"Ah, for one, would like ta know wha' th' bloody hell Ah'm doin' 'ere," Interrupted Mr. Scott, "We've still got a lot o' work ta do ta ge' this ship 'ome."

"I must second that," Mr. Checkov said, his hand raised slightly as if he were a classroom.

"I'm thirding it." Stated lieutenant Sulu.

Spock had been wondering this himself. "Perhaps if you could explain to us where, or rather, when, you come from, those questions might be answered." he suggested.

"Yes, I believe that would be best," the Ambassador agreed, "However, they are indeed correct in saying that there is other work to be done."

Spock, with an unpleasant internal jolt, realized that he'd been so caught up in what had been occurring with his and the others' elder counterparts, that he'd almost entirely forgotten how dire the need was for repairs aboard the Enterprise, not to mention the need to be able to contact Starfleet Command, and for a casualty list.

"Perhaps," he suggested, quietly, but still causing everyone at the table to turn and look at him, "it would be advisable for you four to leave us with the basics," here, he made a barely perceptible face that he was fairly certain only Nyota and his elder self picked up on; he hated being left with just the basics,"so that we may exact necessary repairs and communications, rendering us free to here the full story and ask whatever questions we may have without urgency."

The older four Starfleet, 'or former Starfleet depending how one reflected on it, or was it future?' Spock shook himself mentally, diverting his attention from that unproductive thought back to what he'd been noticing. The elder men and woman in the room all exchanged apparently meaningful glances; Admiral Kirk then spoke up.

"That'll work for us. Mini me?"

Spock turned to look at the younger Jim Kirk, who was currently making a face that seemed mildly annoyed. 'Most likely at being called a "mini-me"', Spock deduced.

"Okay, first of all, don't call me that," he rasped, and Spock made a note to make sure that the captain was included in the forthcoming repairs; the man was sounding hoarser every time he spoke, "Second of all, this means that I'm going to have to wait to find out what the hell that talk about assassinations was, doesn't it?"

Spock opened his mouth to inform is acting captain that a story that did not seem relevant hardly took precedence over making the necessary repairs to return to Earth, but a soft hand on his arm stopped him.

"He's joking Spock, let it go," Nyota whispered in his ear, so Spock shut his mouth.

The elder Kirk, whose hands had been raised in mock surrender in mock surrender at his younger self's comment put them down and laughed as the elder McCoy chuckled, the elder Uhura giggled slightly, and his own elder self quircked an eyebrow in what seemed to be amusement.

"Yes, yes it does." he said almost gleefully, causing A. McCoy to glower at him.

The younger Doctor McCoy, looked almost disappointed, as did, to a lesser extent Mr. Sulu, Mr. Chekov, and Mr. Scott.

"Anyway," the Admiral continued, "The very short, abridged version, is that Mr., sorry, Ambassador Spock, Doctor and Admiral McCoy, Commander Uhura and myself, are from the future in an alternate timeline that this one broke off from when Nero got sucked into a singularity and ended up right next to the Kelvin on the day that I was born. Spock got sucked in after Nero, Uhura and Bones got here because of transported accidents, and I... well that's a long story in and of itself so I'll leave that for another time."

This caused some reaction. Spock heard Nyota gasp beside him, as Mr. Sulu's jaw dropped. Neither the Acting Captain nor Mr. Scott seemed shocked, which made sense, seeing as Spock was fairly certain that both of them had already known. Mr. Chekov's eyes had expanded to almost twice their normal size, and he seemed lost in the scientific ramifications of this new information.

The most dramatic reaction came from Doctor McCoy. His mouth opened and shut a few times, a vaguely strangled sound escaping his lips, before he threw his hands in the air, mumbled something that Spock thought might have been "I give up", and looking greatly peeved, dropped his head into his hands.

Raising his hand uncertainly, Mr. Chekov asked, "So vy are myself, Meester Scott, and Meester Sulu here?"

"Oh, right, sorry Chekov," Admiral Kirk said sheepishly, "You all are here, because in that other timeline, I was captain of the Enterprise, and you all made up my senior bridge crew."

Spock felt his eyebrow shoot up at that unexpected information; looking around, he saw that all of those from his timeline looked similarly shocked. Even Doctor McCoy raised his head out of his hands to look surprised, before he sighed and leaned back in his chair, apparently coming to terms with the fact that this insanity was his life now. Spock had to keep his mouth from twitching up at that thought. His elder counterpart's lips gave a slightly larger twitch than they had before, and that strange twinkle in his eye was back. Then Spock pulled his mind back to what had just been said.

'The odds of us all ending up on the same ship as our counterparts, working so closely together are huge' he thought.

Clearly, some of the others were thinking the same thing, because Mr. Chekov breathed, "Ze odds of us all ending up on zis sheep alone," while Mr. Scott nodded along.

A small smile seemed to be playing at the corners of all of those that came from the other timeline at that statement, but Spock couldn't figure out why it would be amusing. It was the truth after all, so why did these people seem to think that it wasn't? He would have to question his elder self at a later time.

"Right," Acting-Captain Kirk said, "standing somewhat gingerly from his chair and rubbing his hands together, "Let's get to work. You guys," this was directed at the elder McCoy, Nyota, Kirk, and Spock, "should sit tight here so that we don't have tons of questions about who you are and where you came from; I'm guessing that you don't want Starfleet knowing just yet?"

The group nodded without question, though the elder Kirk and Spock's eyes seemed to be dancing in an almost mischievous way (something that Spock found somewhat disconcerting in his older self), and Spock found himself somewhat struck by the easy authority and confidence with which Kirk was currently holding himself. Of course he's seen glimpses of it before, but during the Kobiashi Maru Kirk'd been arrogant and flippant, sure both in his hack on Spock's test and how stupid he found the test itself. Then, later while fighting Nero, Spock had been too busy taking down Nero and being in shock from the destruction of Vulcan to really dwell on it, but now...

Now the half-Vulcan was beginning to think that his initial evaluation of the young human was perhaps not entirely accurate. He'd thought him to be arrogant and reckless, which he was, to a certain extent, particularly the latter, but now he was seeing something else. He was remembering the determination that he'd displayed in both alerting Captain Pike to the danger that lay ahead when they were en route to Vulcan, and then in taking the Romulans down. And the plan that he'd come up with on the fly and somehow managed to execute against all odds, and the way he and the others had fallen in behind him like it was the most natural thing in the world...

Spock was beginning to think he understood why Captain Pike had appointed Kirk to first officer in his absence. The man appeared to be a natural born leader. He apparently was not the only one to have noticed. Doctor McCoy was looking at him with something that might have been pride, but also what appeared to Spock to be sadness, which puzzled him. Nyota was looking at Kirk like he reminded her of something, or someone. Given some aspects of her past, Spock wasn't surprised, but is was intriguing all the same.

"Okay." Kirk continued, "Bones, you go back to you're domain, do what you need to do with Captain Pike and the other injured. Scotty, you get our girl running enough to get us home, I'll-"

"Be in med-bay," both McCoys interrupted him simultaneously before Spock should suggest the very thing.

Kirk opened his mouth, presumably to argue, but the younger doctor cut him off before so much as a word came out.

"You're one of the injured Jim," he said with a gentleness that seemed at odds with the prickly man's personality, "You've had a pretty big number done on you; you're running on fumes, and you can't help if you collapse."

Kirk didn't protest any further, which seemed to Spock to be a good thing, but for some reason sent a sharp worry flashing through McCoy's eyes.

"I'll be in the med-bay until Bones releases me. Lieutenant Uhura, you coordinate with engineering to get communications back." Kirk's voice was so rough now as to be almost completely unrecognizable, and his eyes tightened with pain with every word. McCoy, looking even more worried, pressed anther hypo into his arm. When he spoke again, the Acting-Captain seemed to be in a slightly less pain. "Commander Spock, you can make sure that the Vulcan survivors are as alright as they can be, given the circumstances, find out the names of those who either escaped or were off planet so that we can compile a list of those who... didn't make it, then do what you can to assist in repairs."

Spock, heart twinging painfully at the reminder of what had happened to his planet and his people, nodded.

"And, if you need to take some time to meditate to try and balance yourself out, take it."

Spock, wanting to object to the implication that he was unstable, was somewhat taken aback at Kirk's knowledge of Vulcan practices, and knowing that any relief from his raging grief that meditating could bring him was badly needed, inclined his head again.

"Sulu and Chekov, I need you on the bridge, compiling a list of..." here here he took a shuddering breath, "a list of those who weren't as lucky as we are. Then help however you can. I'm sorry to give you that duty, but someone needed to do it and I'll be stuck in medbay."

Both young men nodded, pale, but resolute.

"Alright, people, let's get to work."

They all stood; Nyota gave him a smile and squeezed his shoulder before she went, the others following. Spock to a fortifying breath of his own before going off to find what was left of Vulcan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! This was way too long in coming, so I hope you guys think that it's a good chapter. 
> 
> Just out of curiosity, did anyone catch the Phineas and Ferb referrence?
> 
> Thanks to everyone who's put up with my ridiculously long time between updates and is still reading this :o)
> 
> Next chapters'll be up very, very soon :)


	7. Meddling Old Folks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the next chapter, this one's pretty filler-y sorry.

Chapter 7- Meddling Old Folks

Commander Nyota Uhura sighed as the crew of this Enterprise filed out of the room. God they were so young. Glancing around at her companions, she saw that her Captain turned Admiral was leaning back in chair, seemingly deep in thought, while Mr. Spock seemd to be doing the same, thought his posture was only slightly less ramrod straight than it had been. Doctor McCoy was frowning at the doorway, looking vaguely worried.

None of them showed any signs of meaning to do anything else, so Uhura sighed, and said "I don't suppose any of the three of you feel any sort of need to explain what exactly is going on, and how we all ended up here to me?"

All three men turned to her with expressions of surprise. Uhura sighed and rolled her eyes. "I haven't been here as long as you boys, I don't know who Nero is, or really how any of you ended up here, so if you don't mind, I'd really like an explanation beyond the barebones details."

She also wanted to know whether any of them ever will make it home, she wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer.

Leonard and Jim both looked to Spock, who, it appeared, had more of a handle on what was happening than anyone else. He sighed, and for the first time since she'd landed here Uhura realized that he looked older than she'd ever seen him, and so very, very sad.

"My apologies Commander. I-we," here he looked to his friends "were merely lost in thought. It has been something of a 'long day'."

He proceeded to tell her, which occasional interjections from Leonard or Jim, what all had happened, his voice broke when he began to talk about what had happened to Vulcan, so Jim picked up the story from there.

At end of it, Uhura blinked back that last of the threatening tears from her eyes.

"We're staying here, aren't we. We're not going home?"

"We could probably figure out a way, enlist Scotty and mini-Spock if we really wanted to, but-"

But you don't want to, do you Jim. Uhura bit her lip, conflicted. Scotty was gone, all of their other friends were dead there...

"I was thinking, that if you yahoos end up staying here, I'd stick around too," said Leonard, "All these youngsters make me feel old, but there's something about..."

"Wanting to meddle like an old man?" Jim asked.

Spock's lips twitched, clearly there was an inside joke there.

Leonard chuckled. "Yeah, pretty much."

The three of them looked at her.

"If you truly want to go back, we can-" Spock started.

"No. If the three of you are staying here, and Scotty's g-" Uhura fought past the lump in her throat, "Scotty's gone, and Chekov and Sulu are too...There's nothing for me back there."

"So we're in agreement then?"Asked Jim.

Uhura nodded and she could see the other two doing the same.

"So," she said, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, in spite of everything. "Meddling like old folks. Ideas?"

"I'm telling them to blast the Botany Bay to pieces as soon as they see it," Jim said immediately. Well. Obviously. That was not an incident that needed repeating.

"Oh, definitely," Leonard agreed, nodding emphatically as Spocks lips formed what might have been a small smile. "And we're warning them about the tribbles."

Uhura snorted. "I don't know Len, I think that I might be entertaining to here that story pan out again."

"After all," added Spock,"We would not want to deprive Mr. Scott of the pleasure of incapacitating the Klingon ship via small animals."

"We could at least give them the sterilizing agent when they ask for it, the right one this time." Jim put in.

"Fair enough," Len said.

Uhura and the others spent a good two hours debating the pros and cons of various intervention, and who the knowledge should go to (they all felt that there should be a collective warning as to the dangers of ion storms in relation to dimension travel).

They'd also come up with a fairly exhaustive list of things that they wanted to ask their younger counterparts about, pertaining to differences in this timeline from their own.

Finally, the younger versions of the Enterprise's bridge crew filed back in. The young Captain Kirk Uhura noted, looked at bit less like he's been run over by a troupe of Gorns, though he did still look fairly exhausted, not that he was the only one. Even the younger Spock was doing the thing that he tended to do when completely exhausted where his back was locked even more ramrod-straight than usual and his face was set firmly in the most inexpressive expression that he possible could. Her younger self had dark circles under her eyes, as did the younger Doctor McCoy, though judging by his face, he was (unsuccessfully) attempting to will them away by sheer force of his scowl. Chekov and Sulu both looked as if they were on their last legs emotionally, unsurprising given the job they'd had to do. She didn't envy them that. Although, now that she thought about it, Chekov looked worse off than Sulu. She wasn't sure if that was becuase he was so young, or it something else had happened. Either way, Uhura resolved to see what she could do to help, later.

Finally, she turned her attention to Scotty. Of all the young ones, he seemed to be one of the ones who had changed the least. Despite the fact that he'd apparently joined reasonably late in the adventure, he'd clearly been running himself ragged fixing up the ship he'd clearly already fallen in love with (and wasn't that just typical). The younger ones probably wouldn't be able to tell yet, they didn't know him as well at this point as they eventually would, but when Mon-Scotty, this one's Scotty Nyota, Monty's God only knows where at this point-, when Scotty got exhausted he had a period of hyperactivity where he seemed like he had all the energy in the world before he inevitably crashed one the crisis was over.

He and Jim has always been similar in that regard, though Scotty was usually able to keep up his manic state longer than Jim could, probably becuase he got injured at lot less.

Finally, everyone got situated in chairs of their own around the table. Jim, the Admiral not the Captain, clasped his hands on the table.

"So," he said, "Where shall we start."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if Uhura seems a little OOC, I was having some trouble with her characterization, but I think I did okay. Hopefully :)  
> Next chapter will be out, hopefully by tomorrow, if not it'll just be a few days :)


	8. Blast the Damn Thing Into as Many Pieces as You Can

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, this is the last chapter I've got already done. The next one'll come up on here and on ff.net when it's finished, and I want to say that it'll be soon, because I'm gonna try to make that happen, but it might not be, so just fair warning there. Hope y'all like it :)

"Where should we start?" asked Jim's elder counterpart asked them.

"Assassinations" Jim blurted immediately, then turned to grin at Bones, who'd said it at the same time.

Old him chuckled, and shared amused glances with the other dimension travelers.

"That was an interesting one," Old Uhura.

"Moral of this story, never use the transporter during an ion storm," Old Bones pronounced.

"Are you actually going to tell it to us?" asked Sulu impatiently, a split second before Jim got the chance too.

"Patience, children," said Old Him, grinning mischievously.

Jim, deciding that Old Spock was his best bet, accordingly looked to him for help.

"Jim," Old Spock turned to the Admiral, "perhaps it would be in all of our best interests to tell the story so that we may move on to more relevant topics, and," here he turned his head to give Jim a look that he could swear was as mischievous as Old Jim's smile, "satisfy the curiosity of the children before they, as you might say, 'explode.'"

Jim, and his (he probably shouldn't be thinking if them as his when, more likely than not, he's gonna end up court marshaled for what he'd pulled, but he can't quite help it) crew (bar Spock, though Jim could swear he actually looks slightly offended), made the appropriate outraged noises at being called children, and Jim just knew he saw Old-Spock's lips twitch. The other Olds outright laughed.

"Okay, okay," Old Him said, still chuckling a little, "So what happened is..."

And then he was off. Old Him told most of it; the others interjecting form time to time, while Old Spock narrated what happened back in their normal universe. While it sounded interesting, and at times even funny, it didn't sound even remotely like something that Jim wanted to go through, ever. He could tell that the rest of the his crew (and God, he just couldn't stop himself from thinking of them as his, could he; most of them he hasn't even known for more than two days) felt the same way. None of them would be transporting during an ion storm any time soon.

By the time he finished, Old Him was sounding a bit croaky, so, in the ensuing silence, Jim started to get up to get him a drink. Bones, with a firm had on his shoulder barring all argument, pushed him back into his seat. Protesting less than he might have had he had more than two hours catnap in the past two days, Jim let his best friend get the water.

"So," Old Him said, after sipping his glass and giving Bones a grateful nod. "What next?"

"Botany Bay," Says Old Bones immediately, and as grimly as Jim's ever heard a Bones McCoy say anything. Jim had never heard of it, and glancing around, he didn't think that any of the occupants of the room under the age of sixty have either, but the other olds very clearly had.

Old Him's eyes went dark, and he gave a short nod, face set in stone. Older (please, Jim knew better than to call a lady old, even in his head), Uhura's did too, and she scowled at the table, while Old Spock shifted slightly in his seat as the corners of his mouth turned down.

"Umm," Chekov piped up, a little subdued by the stories of what his evil mirrorverse counterpart had done, and timidly raising his hand a little, "Vat is a Botany Bay, and vhy do ve hef to know about it?"

The Olds all exchanged heavy glances, and then Older Uhura finally spoke up. "The Botany Bay, is, was, is I guess now, a ship."

"And," Old Bones continued, "If you ever come across it, don't hail it, don't scan it."

"Just blast it," Old him finished. Jim was staring at them. All of the Olds, even Old Spock were looking vaguely to outright murderous. "Blast the damn thing into as many pieces as you can, then blast the pieces. There is nothing and no one on that ship worth what'll happen if you don't."

"Wait just a damn minute," Bones broke in, a second before Jim could say anything. "'nothing and no one', do you mean that there are people on that ship?"

"What's going to happen if we don't?" Jim asked, before anyone could answer his best friend.

The Olds exchanged heavy glances again. Jim was getting kind of tired of them doing that.

"There are only people in the Botany Bay in the loosest sense of the word." Old Bones finally said.

"They're genetically enhanced nightmare psychopaths with a insane, despotic bastard for a leader, and nothing good will ever come out of waking them up," Old Him pronounced emphatically.

No one said anything for a few moments, and when no more information was forthcoming, Jim opened his mouth again. "You guys never answered my question. What'll happen if we don't blast that ship?"

"A lot of our people will die." Older Uhura told them, and she started to say something else, but before she could, Old Spock finally spoke up.

"In our timeline," he said quietly, "The crew of the Botany Bay caused considerable damage to the Enterprise and a research outpost. Most of the scientists on the outpost, as well as much of the crew were killed, including," here, Old Spock paused, and sighed. "Including me."

Jim's jaw dropped, and then, when his face reminded him of the beat down it'd received, closed his mouth, though he kept gaping. Old Spock was looking pretty good for a dead guy.

It was only when Bones snorted beside him, the human Olds all laughed a little, and Old Spock's lips twitched that Jim realized that he'd said that out loud.

"Due to the unrelenting stubbornness of my friends, and some extremely extenuating circumstances, my death was only temporary." Old Spock explained.

Jim wanted very much to ask just what sort of extenuating circumstances those were, exactly, to bring someone back from the dead but to his surprise, Sock beat him to it.

"And what sort of extenuating circumstances were those?" he asked sharply.

The Olds exchanged another one of the group glances, and Jim had to fight very hard to not roll his eyes.

"That's something we're not gonna tell you," Old Bones said. "It's just...no."

Jim almost pushed again, and he saw Uhura open her mouth to do it too, but... barr Jim's little involuntary outburst earlier, none of the Olds have so much as cracked a grin since Old Bones'd said the words "Botany Bay". They were deadly serious about all of this, and so Jim decided not to push. Closing her mouth, Uhura seemed to reach the same conclusion.

In the ensuing silence, Jim looked around at the people who apparently were supposed to be his crew, and if the interactions of the Olds are anything to go by, his family. He'd already mostly decided, but looking around, he made up his mind.

"If we see the Botany Bay, we'll blow it." He told the Olds. All of them looked relieved.

"Speaking of insane despots," said Old Bones, "should we maybe talk about the genocidal one?" His question was directed at Old Him.

"Yes," he said, and it was on the exhalation of a sigh. "Yes that, hold on." Old Him grabbed the PADDs that Sulu and Chekov had used to compile the casualty lists on. "While I'm doing this," he said, "why don't you all tell us about your timeline."

So they did. It took a while, and Jim kept flicking his eyes to his older counterpart, trying to figure out what he was doing. For a while, he'd just been scrolling through the list of names on the PADD. Occasionally his eyebrows drew together and the corners of his mouth tipped down in a frown. Every so often he'd stop, sigh, and look sad and older than he already was, then keep scrolling. He did that for a while. There were a lot of names, and Jim was trying not to think about who could be on that.

While Old Jim did that, in between asking and answering questions, his crew occasionally sent him concerned glances. Finally with a slump of his shoulders, and a quiet, but emphatic "Damn," Old Him seemed to find what he'd been looking for.

Everyone had stopped talking, and his head came up from the PADD for a moment, just long enough to say, "Keep going, I just need to-" before he was back to poking at the device.

Jim looked around and mostly got shrugs, and so the conversations resumed while the Admiral kept looking for...something.

Finally, he sighed again, set his PADD down, and cleared his throat.

"Are we finally going to find out about the genocidal insane despot?" Bones grumped impatiently.

Old Him gave Bones a small smile. "Sorry. I just had...to do some research. See how some things went in this timeline. If this was even relevant."

"Is it?" asked Old Spock quietly.

Old Him gave a heavy sigh. "Yes, I think so but," here he ran a hand over his face, "while there's no more evidence to his death this time than the last, if he's parading around as Anton Kardian it's not in the theater business."

Thoroughly confused (and blatantly ignoring the possibility that would make a horrifying amount of sense lest he be sick), Jim watched as the other Olds looked worried.

"You sure you wanna tell this one Jim?" Old Bones said, in a gentle way that Jim's Bones had only ever done when Jim was nearly dying, had just been talking about Frank, or- and nope. Not thinking about that.

"I-yes." Old Him decided. "I-This one I need to tell."

Jim decidedly didn't look over to Bones, because if he did and his best friend read on his face what he was determinedly not forming a theory about and agreed with the not-theory, well. Jim'd already been put through the goddamn ringer in the past few days. He really didn't need to deal with this. Unless he-nope.

Old Him let out another shuddering sigh. "Sorry that took so long, there were just some things that I had so check on before I told this. And like I said, I don't know how helpful this'll be or even," here, Jim got a long look from his older counterpart that he wasn't sure what to make of. "How this will carry over the timelines. This in particular...Well, it was never easy to look around this incident," a bitter laugh, as if incident was as much of an understatement as was physically possible, "in my timeline, and it's been even more classified in yours."

"So," said Uhura, and looking at her Jim realized that in the last few minutes she'd started to look like she was straight up dreading what might come out of Old Jim's mouth next almost as much as Jim was, "Who's the genocidal despot that we need to watch out for?"

Old Him gave Jim another long, indecipherable look before answering like a hammer fall, "At one time, long after his supposed death, my crew and I had a...run in. With Kodos the Executioner."

The bottom of Jim's stomach dropped out, and he heared a roaring in his ears. Kodos...God. Jim could've happily gone his whole life without ever hearing that name again. Almost subconsciously he registered the hand that Bones had put on his arm, trying to ground him, the complete and utter silence that fell after Old Him's announcement, and the fact that Uhura's face had gone a sickly gray. A little hysterically, Jim thought that his own must be bone white, right about now. Kodos. A thousand memories and none at all rushed through his mind, until it was all he could do not to be sick right then and there.

"You had a run in with Kodos." He said, barely registering the words as they left his mouth, and not seeing the flinch that Uhura gave at the name. "Tarsus" a shaky breath, "Tarsus IV Kodos. The bastard who-" Jim's voice broke and he found that he couldn't keep going.

He realized that at some point in the last minute or so, he'd grabbed the arm that Bones was using to gently hold onto Jim's wrist, and was holding it in a death grip. His other fist was clenched so tight that he could feel the nails on his fingers biting into his palm.

Old him gave him another look. This time Jim realized that he'd been looking for some indicator-whether or not Jim'd been to Tarsus in this timeline. And now-now it was understanding. Because Jim's reaction had given him away, especially if whoever was looking knew what they were looking for. And Jim realized that this man, this older version if himself-but-not-himself had been on Tarsus IV when It had happened.

"How?" Jim choked out.

"Before I tell this, you need to understand why I spent so long researching," Old Him began, "I had to see what had changed with Tarsus IV."

"And?" Scotty asked.

"Quite a lot." Old Him said. "To start, In my timeline, only nine people, none over twenty at the time, survived who had seen Kodos's face. They-" here he paused, drawing in a shaky breath, "We, were called the Tarsus Nine." Ignoring the gasps and general shocked reactions that the others made while Jim noted that the cold lump in his stomach probably wouldn't be going away any time soon, Old Him kept speaking, "Here, it looks like there are thirteen. And I can't find the names of any of them, so I don't know if any of the names that I'll mention are relevant."

Hot relief mixed in heavily with shame swirled around in Jim's stomach. Thirteen. That was. God. They'd all made it. Every single one of his kids still in that cave when Starfleet had finally, finally come had survived. He should've known that. He should've but he couldn't bring himself to look, couldn't face the possibility that any of them could have died while Kodos had had him and-no. Not thinking about that.

If he thought about who hadn't made it while he survived, he'd break right there, and he couldn't, so Jim blinked back the burning tears that had started to gather behind his eyelids. Later. He could let himself fall apart later.

"Ah-" Old Him kept going. "It looks like what Kodos did, the massacre of half of the colony," Jim firmly pushed away the creams that rang in his ears' memory, "that happened more or less the same. But...From what I could find on it, Kodos went a lot further in this timeline, with what he did, how he hunted. In my timeline...There wasn't any Meadowlark, or River, who hid those kids who were slated for death.," Jim couldn't breath. God, why did Old Him have to hash this out. "That was...what he did with them, to them. That never happened, and I think that what whoever the Meadowlark was did...It made that difference between the nine and the thirteen survivors, and for whatever reason, and this I don't know why...Kodos was different in my timeline, and that's what you," Here Jim could see that Old Him was looking straight across the table at him, "need to remember."

"So," Bones asked, thumb now rubbing circles into Jim's wrist, clearly trying to calm him down, "What happened?"

Old Him took a fortifying breath. "I'd kept in contact with one of the other Nine, Dr. Thomas Leighton; we were good friends. He was an scientist, and he called me, the Enterprise over, supposedly to look at this new synthetic food source. We went, but when we got there...There was a traveling Shakespearean company that had come to Planet Q, that's where Thomas lived," He added, as an aside, "to preform. Thomas had gone to see them, and he swore up and down that the lead actor, Anton Kardian, was Kodos." Old him laughed, but there was no humor in it. "I should've listened to him, should've known that none of us could ever mistake someone else's voice for his, but it had been so long..."

A bad feeling took root in Jim's stomach, along with everything else.

"We went to the play." Old Him continued. "Kardian wasn't there, but after the show, I met his daughter Lenore," blonde hair, cold, hard blue eyes, poisonous, razor sharp smile flashed through Jim's mind. "We walked, and we found," Old Him's voice broke, and he ran his hand over his face, pulling himself together, "We found Thomas, dead. I knew something was wrong, that Thomas must have been right, but the troupe was leaving, and so to keep an eye on things, I offered up the Enterprise as a ferry for them. I had a Comms officer, Lt. Kevin Riley, who" Old Him paused, "didn't...make it off of the Farragut this time," Jim heard a slight sob, but was to busy not thinking of who else bright smile, bright hair was on the Farragut to see who it'd come from, and oh God Trannie'd somehow survived but he was dead now, still dead and Jim was never- "I knew he was one of the Nine, so to keep him safe, I transferred him down to engineering, to keep him out of the way of Kodos.

"Spock did some research and figured out that somehow, without anybody noticing, Lt. Riley and I had become the last of the Tarsus Nine. All of the others had been killed. Riley nearly got poisoned, and then while in Med-Bay, figured out what was happening, so he went after Kodos while his troupe was preforming Hamlet. He nearly killed him, but...I didn't want Kodos of all people to turn him into a killer, so I...stopped it."

Jim knew how he'd felt. He'd tried so hard to make sure that as few of his kids as possible had to cross that line. He also thought that a dead Kodos was the only good Kodos. But. He got it.

"And as it turns out...Kodos hadn't killed anyone since Tarsus IV." Shock, bright and sudden tore through Jim until he remembered. Kodos was different in my timeline. "It had been his daughter, Lenore who'd killed the rest of the Nine, tied to poison Kevin, and she tried to shoot me. Kodos...took the blast. Saved my life, and managed to get killed by his own daughter."

Silence. Complete and utter silence. And still. Did the fact that it wasn't Kodos doing the killing, and that he saved Old Jim surprise Jim? Yes, yes it did. Did Lenore having been the one to do it surprise him? coldeyesandpoisonoussmile No. No, that didn't surprise him in the slightest.

Jim was still working out what the hell he was supposed to say to all of that, when a trembling, but steel laden voice broke the silence first.

"Fifteen," And it was Uhura, still as pale as Jim felt, and a few tear tracks marking her face. "There were" her voice broke, but she kept going, "There were fifteen survivors in this timeline."

Feeling like he'd just been socked in the gut, Jim stared at her. "What do you mean there were fifteen survivors." Jim wasn't sure if his voice was more harsh and grating or completely choked, but a cry of pain, splash of red silence, screaming, he was screaming she was dead his second in command his Jedi Master, his Raven his sister because she was, screw genetics was dead and a phaser blast another scream then more horrible horrible silence and he can't look he can't oh god not Trannie "Where are the others" can't tell can't tell him, oh God they were dead. No one knew about him or Sensei, and so there were thirteen.

"I-" she looked taken aback, "I was there. On Tarsus IV. My, my parents had to go to a convention, I don't remember what for." She swallowed. "I couldn't go, and they'd met Ho-" Jim could see her forcibly choking back a sob, and what was going on, "I'd already gotten fascinated with languages, and they'd met Hoshi-Hoshi Sato, years earlier, and so they sent me to st-stay with her."

No. It was- it wasn't possibly, she couldn't be- but long forgotten, buried as far as he could push it, he couldn't know it so Jim couldn't remember "I'm Nyota." "Yoda?" laughter. "NYyoTa, what the heck's a yoda?" "It's from this old movie, I can show you want" more laughing "I don't even knew you're name yet." "Call me Ty." Oh God. It was her, she wasn't dead, how was she not dead?

Jim wasn't sure he wanted to know what his face looked like just then.

"Kod-Kodos caught me, and Ty-sorry, River, or Meadowlark, whatever, and Tran, sorry, Kevin, Kevin Riley, and Tran and I nearly got killed but we meade it out, but Ty-" her voice broke again, but Jim was frozen. Greenie (he's refused to stop calling her Yoda, but she eventually'd talked him down to just the color) was alive and she was upset, and he should do something, say something, but he'd frozen. They- Greenie and Tran'd survived but now-now Tran was dead and it was late, much too late and sorry, sorry I'm sorry, if he'd looked at all, he could have found them, and Trannie, he could have seen him before-but he was dead now, really truly dead, because Nero had succeeded when even Kodos'd failed. "Ty...he never did give the others up, and Kodos killed him for it."

No, he didn't, I made it. Greenie, I'm right here. But Jim couldn't make his mouth or his voice work, and God. What was wrong with him.

He could feel Bones's eyes on him, worried, but-

"What's up with the nicknames?" Sulu asked.

And he could talk again. "None of us knew each other's real names, except we all knew Hoshi's, but we all called her Sensei anyway and we all told one other person, so if we didn't make it, someone would know." he got out somehow, mouth as dry as a goddamn bone "Because, if we didn't know, then Kodos couldn't get it out of us. I- I knew Kevin's. And he was Tran after this character is this TV show that Sam'd-Sam'd shown me, before-"

And he didn't, couldn't finish that, not on top of everything else, but he could meet Uhura-Greenie's eyes, and she was staring at him like he'd just announced his intention to live out the rest of his life as a cockatoo, "But I didn't, I never looked, after because, I thought- I thought you were both dead I thought I'd seen Kodos kill you, both of you, and I couldn't- I lived but I never" recovered, moved on, got to the point where he could hear about Tarsus without nearly having a panic attack, and she was starting to get it now, he could tell, and God, he'd never wanted to make her cry, but he was not, and he could tell that he was going to lose the battle with his own burgeoning tears, and Bones's arm'd moved to around Jim shoulders and he was falling apart in front of a bunch of a people he barely knew but he couldn't stop, or care, "I'm sorry, Greenie, I'm so sorry, I should've, should've-" looked for them, found them, known that they were alive, made sure they were okay, and he could've, should've with all his kids-

"Shut up," she ordered and he did, and god she must hate him, for not looking, Jim hated himself, he realized that he'd said that out loud when she said, through her tears "Oh, God, you, you wonderful idiot of course I don't hate you you moron, we never hated you, of course we didn't, and how are you alive?" She was crying in earnest, now, and so was he, and he was shrugging Bone's off her, he was standing up to hug her, but-

A whistle sounded, and Jim jumped; he wasn't the only one. Bones cursed, and then grabbed for his Comm.

"What!" he barked.

"Sir," came the voice of one of Bones's nurses, "Captain Pike is awake."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so a few things:
> 
> If any of you were wondering where I got the whole 'Uhura was on Tarsus' thing, it was from this fanfiction by Wonderfulwrites called Tectonic Shift; great read. (ff.net) And to be completely clear, Jim's relationship with Uhura will NOT be romantic. Brother/sister type completely platonic, brotp relationship there.
> 
> On another note, I've been considering having the next chapter be the last super plot heavy one for this fic, and just continuing with oneshots of the Olds (which, by the way is a term I borrowed from a Captain America series on AO3, the Infinite Coffee and Protection Detail by owlet, which has some great slow burn Stucky, and is just all around fantastic, so if any of you are in to any of that definitely check it out), being their meddlesome selves, either in this fic, or making a separate one just for that. 
> 
> SO, any thoughts, input you guys could give me on that in reviews would be HUGELY appreciated. :)
> 
> Also, yes, the whole 'Tran' thing is totally because of Kevin Tran from supernatural.


	9. I'm Really Glad You're Not Dead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's being posted here on AO3 first, and should be up on ff.net sometime Monday afternoon. Hope you guys enjoy!

Nyota's head was spinning with conflicting emotions: grief, joy, relief, anger, and probably a whole lot of others besides. She'd had a truly horrible day, just one hit after another, and she'd just found out that one of her oldest and closest friends, and most probably her roommate were dead. And then...And then there was Ty.

He was alive. Ty was alive, and beat to hell, but alive after all these years of thinking being so sure that he was dead, and God how had she not seen it before? Silence had fallen after Dr. McCoy's comm had beeped, and no one had moved. Kirk was still staring at her like he wasn't all together sure that she was real. She herself still wasn't entirely sure that she wasn't having some insane dream.

She knew her face was wet, a loss of composure she would normally have never allowed herself in the company of her colleagues, but she couldn't help it. 

It was Doctor McCoy who finally broke the silence, with an uncharacteristic hesitance. "I should probably go check on Chr-Captain Pike. He'll-" he bit his lip looking conflicted before continuing, "He'll probably want to see you Jim." He looked apologetic, like he knew what was going on, and Nyota found herself wondering if Ty had confided in Doctor McCoy the was she had in Spock. 

That seemed to shake Kirk out of the stupor he'd fallen into. He took a deep shuddering breath, and brought his hand to his face, seeming almost surprised when he felt moisture, like he hadn't been fully aware of the tears that he'd been shedding too. Distantly, Nyota felt a tiny jolt of surprise at how much better just one (earth shattering, spectacular, wonderful), new piece of information had made her at reading this man, who she'd thought she'd known, but had clearly spectacularly misjudged. 

"I-yeah," Ty said, his voice impossibly even rougher than it had been earlier, "I should-Um, Greenie, do you...?"

His question trailed off, but Nyota was already on her feet. Like hell she was letting him out of her sight this soon after what she'd just found out he was alive. At the moment she was doubtful if she'd ever let him out of her sight again, especially after what'd happened with Kevin. 

With a slight grimace of pain that Nyota didn't think anybody than herself and Doctor McCoy saw, Ty levered himself to his feet, the Doctor following right after him. Nyota felt a light brush againsed her fingertips that accompanied a feeling of love and reassurance, and gave Spock a small, grateful smile before following a step behind the Captain and the CMO as they left the conference room.

As soon as the door swished around them, Ty whirled around, a familiar energy that Nyota couldn't believe she hand't recognized at some point in the last three years shining in his eyes, as he made an aborted movement towards her with his arms.

"I-can I-"

A choked sob made it's way out of Nyota's mouth before she was falling into him, her face smashed against his chest, clinging to him as he clung to her in kind as they shook, sobs forcing their way of them both.

"Oh, God."

She wasn't even sure which of them had said it, and she was soaking his shirt, her hair getting steadily damper as his tears made their way from his eyes to where his face was pressed againsed her hers, and he's gotten so damned big, the last time she'd seen him, he'd been so thin, and so hurt, and so much shorter, and now he was curled around her like he could protect her from anything, like he hadn't already, again, and he was here and it might've been the best thing he'd ever done for her. 

And it was perfect. Another little piece of her scattered broken family had found his was back to her, even as they lost-'Not dwelling on that right now, Ny,' she told herself. 

"I'm really, really glad you're not dead," she mumbled into his chest, "and I'm sorry I've been such a bitch to you."

His arms tightened around her, and he laughed softly. "I was a dick to you so I think we're even Yo-Yo."

Pulling back, she glared at him without any heat, and thumped him lightly. "Don't call me that, James."

This time his whole face lit up in a smile, at the teasing, bright and genuine despite the bruises on his face and around his throat and on his face, and she felt his lips twitching up at the corners in response.

He threw his arm around her shoulders, and leaned into the arm that Doctor McCoy, who'd been watching them with a small smile, had slung around his, and like that they made their way down the corridor. Nyota still had questions though, and she figured that a walk was as good a time as any to have them answered.

"How did you get away?" she asked, "Everyone said that you-" Even now, she couldn't quite bring herself to say it. 

The arm around her shoulders tightened a little. 

"I was...not very far from dead when Starfleet finally showed up," he said. "I think that Kodos had found out that they were coming a few days before, so he just decided to leave me to rot in the cell...Chris was the one who found me."

No wonder they were so close. Nyota hadn't even known that Captain Pike had been there at all.

"No one knew that I'd been there in the first place; I'd used a fake name, didn't want to be recognized which is why I never told you my real name. And then...If they'd found out that I'd been on Tarsus, I'd never have had another moment of peace. And I thought it might be better to let the others think I was gone, told myself they'd be better able to move on without me, because if I went back to them I'd never let them go. And that was true I guess, but..."

Looking up at him, Ny found that she didn't particularly like the look that was coming across her brother's face. Clearly his guilt complex hadn't gotten any better over the years. 

"I couldn't face them," he said quietly, "Not after I'd failed them so badly-"

Not quite believing what she was hearing, Nyota cut him off. "What the hell are you talking about?" she demanded. "When did you ever fail any of us? We're only alive because of you!"

And now he apparently couldn't look her in the eye. "I promised them we'd all come back, Greens, I promised. And you were dead." His voice broke on the last word, and Nyota leaned into him, giving him that silent reminder that she'd made it. 

"You're an idiot," she told him, mindful of how close she was to starting to cry again. "All they would've been was ecstatic that you'd survived, and they never would've blamed you because none of it was your fault."

Doctor McCoy beamed at her, and she blinked startled. She hadn't been aware that his face could do that.

"We've been trying to tell this kid that for years," he told her. 

Ny assumed that Leonard was referring to himself and Captain Pike. Ty opened his mouth rebelliously, but before he got chance to argue with her, she asked, "So what happened after Captain Pike found you?"

The look Ty gave her was a little startled, but there was a small smile on his face as he answered, so she counted that as a win.

"Chris smuggled me onto his ship, without telling Command or anyone who'd be inclined to tell Command, and they his me there all the way back to Earth, then..."

Ny smiled as she let her brother's voice wash over her. They made the rest of their way to Sickbay like that, with Ty telling his story, arriving just as he was starting to delve into their Academy years. 

 

Christopher Pike couldn't feel his legs. Granted, he could barely feel any other part of his body either, but that was beside the point and he felt that he'd earned the right to a little internal panic. Apparently he had some pretty severe spinal damage. Still, the nurses had told him that with the apparent miracle that Leonard McCoy'd managed to pull off, he'd be able to walk again. Eventually, barring any further complications, a statement that made him really not want to know what complications there'd already been.

The eventually was what he was stuck on though, and despite having only been awake for ten minutes at the very most, he felt as though the stir crazy feeling that he'd undoubtedly become very well acquainted with was floating back from the future to drive him crazy now.

The injured captain had managed to bully one of the nurses into getting him a PADD though, and he was now busy trying to make it work to his satisfaction, despite the severe lack of coordination that being doped up of God knew how many pain meds was giving him. This was taking far longer than it should have, and was the main source of his current frustration. 

Finally he managed to get the call-code punched in, because he was almost certain that Jim hadn't had the time to let this particular person know anything. Chris knew that by know she would've found out that something had gone horribly wrong, and that she'd be chomping at the bit trying to figure out what'd happened.

Chris certainly couldn't give her much in the way of details at the moment as he didn't know them himself, but he could at the very least reassure her that Jim'd managed to not get himself killed, and that they were, if not necessarily alright, at least alive.

The screen on the PADD burst into static that resolved itself to show the face of a very worried, extremely old Japanese woman.

"Hey there, Hoshi-san."

Her face broke into a relieved grin, before her eyes narrowed, taking in him presumably far less than stellar appearance.

"What happened to you?" she demanded. "You look like shit."

Chris barked out a short laugh. "I'd feel like it too, I'm sure, except I'm a little drugged up at the moment."

Hoshi Sato's face softened into deeper concern. "What happened, Chris? John called me earlier, telling me that they'd lost all contact with the cadets, and that there was some kind of crisis on Vulcan."

"I don-I don't know of what happened, Hoshi," he admitted, "The Enterprise was the last to get to the scene, and by the time we got here, the rest of the fleet had been completely demolished. I haven't seen the casualty lists, but it was bad. Jim and Len are alive, I know that much, but...Vulcan's gone, and I don't know how many made it off before it went."

The old woman's face had paled steadily throughout his explanation, leaving her a pasty white.

"I heard the distress Vulcan sent out, what they said the crisis was. Chris, it sounded like-"

"It was. Nero uh, he got me pretty good. I was a prisoner on board his ship for most of it, Jim got me out, but all anybody will tell me is that the Narada's been taken care of. He's on his way down here with Len, Jim I mean."

Hoshi swore softly in several languages. "I'll have John look in on T'Pol, if he hasn't already. She can't be doing well."

Chris winced, he hadn't thought of that. "Yeah."

He heard the doors to the Med-Bay swish open, and footsteps making their way in his direction.

"Oh, I think they're here."

Chris was proven right when Len stuck his head in.

"Oh good, you're still up." The Doctor stepped fully into Chris's little room, pulling Jim in with him as Chris turned the PADD around so that they and Hoshi could see each other. Too late, Chris realized that there was someone else with them, as after Jim came one Nyota Uhura, comms officer extraordinaire, who was, and supposed to remain completely unaware of Hoshi's continued longevity.

Her mouth immediately dropped open, and that was when Chris realize that both Jim and he looked like they'd been crying, possibly on each other, if the wet spot on Jim shirt was any indication. What the hell had he missed?

Hoshi was too busy yelling at Jim in increasingly irate Japanese to notice the shell-shocked woman standing beside him, and since Chis barely understood a word of Japanese when she wasn't shouting, he took the time to give his son-in-all-but-blood the once-over that he'd been too out of it to do sooner.

To put it bluntly, the kid looked like hell, bruises all over, and his hand wrapped, but a least he'd gotten some medical attention. Chris took note of the bruise-dark bags under Jim's eyes, and made a mental note to try and make sure that he get some rest as soon a possible. For now he settled for gently tugging him down so that he was sitting of the edge of Chris's bed instead of standing beside it. This earned him a bright smile, and a gentle squeeze to his ankle that he couldn't feel, but appreciated nonetheless. 

To Chris's shock, it wasn't Jim, or even Leonard who stopped Hoshi's tirade, but Lt. Uhura who'd gotten over her shock enough to speak.

"Sensei?" it was quiet and shocked, but Chis could feel his eyes widen in surprise as Hoshi's explosion halted in it's tracks. There was only one group of people who called Hoshi that.

And just like that, despite the cocktail of pain killers currently flooding his system, Chris got it. Nyota. Yoda. Christ, no wonder they'd been crying. What Chris wanted to know was how the hell those two had managed to get through three years at the Academy without figuring it out, and what had changed to make them see it now. 

Now, Hoshi, Uhura, and Jim were speaking to each other in a slew of other languages, most of which Chris didn't even recognize, so he turned to Len to get his answers. 

"Len, not to be rude, but what the hell has been happening on my ship?"

The Doctor laughed, then told him as he ran through the tests to make sure that Chris wasn't going to end up keeling over dead. Chris's brain cycled through several different variations of shock throughout the explanation, mostly surrounding the fact that there were currently four people residing of his ship that hailed from an alternate timeline. And apparently, it had not been one, but two Dr. Leonard McCoy's who had performed his surgery. His brain hurt. 

Still, despite everything, he couldn't help but be happy that all of this meant that Jim had found one of his kids, one he had been sure was dead, alive, and as well as she could be during the circumstances. One look at the soft expression on Doctor McCoy's face told him that the usually crotchety doctor felt the same way. 

Looking at the way Jim's face lit up, again, and again, despite all that had happened today, Chris couldn't help but think back to the first time he'd seen the kid past his early childhood. It'd been nearly a decade ago now when he'd found him in that god-forsaken dungeon on Tarsus IV. He'd been more than half dead, utterly terrified, and still had managed to nearly kill Chris when he'd found his way into the tiny cell where Kodos'd kept him.

Chris hadn't been able to bring himself to go against his wishes when he'd begged him, shockingly blue eyes pleading, to not tell anyone who he was, or even that he'd survived. Chris and Phil, mostly Phil had managed to keep him both alive and a secret all the way back to Earth, where they'd found him help that they couldn't give him because of the demands of their jobs in the form of a young man, brilliant, far kinder than he seemed and nearly done obtaining his medical degree.

Watching them with a small smile, Chris remembered back to when Jim'd burst into his office, eyes brighter than he'd seen in a long, long time chattering about his grumpy, aviaphobic doctor of a roommate in his first week at the academy, and the surprise of all three of them when they'd realized that Jim's, by then, best firend was the very same med-student who'd saved Jim's life all those years back, something that somehow hadn't happened until halfway through their first year when they'd stumbled across Hoshi.

That kid'd been through so much, yet despite it all he'd survived, and againsed all odds found all of these people again.

Chris felt himself start to drift again, heard the kids end the call with Hoshi, and felt Jim slump over so that his head was resting on the bed beside Chris's hand while Uhura's head came to rest on Jim's shoulder. Hearing the deepening breathing of the kids, Chris dropped off to sleep, barely registering draping blankets over the two exhausted cadets. 

Of course, because this was just the day that they were having, that peace didn't last long. Jim's comm chirped, rudely dragging them all back to conciseness, much againsed their will. Chris glared at the obnoxiously beeping device, hoping that he might be able to demolish it with a glare. No such luck. 

With an irate grumble at being woken and forced to dislodge Uhura, Jim answered it and Spock's voice filtered through.  
"Captain, we're getting a transmission from a shuttle that appears to have come through the worm-hole that destroyed the Narada."

"Patch it through Mr. Spock," He replied swapping concerned looks with the others. 

With a "Yes, sir", Spock did, and they were treated to a loud voice discharging a faintly alarming amount of what seemed to be blistering curses in Gaelic. Chris watched with some surprise as the three younger officers swapped looks that said this was recognized. 

Uhura gasped. "But that sounds like-"

"Yeah," Jim agreed. "Go get the counterparts and have them meet us on the bridge. I think they might get to see another old friend."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT PLEASE READ
> 
> So I'm thinking of ending the main story arch with this chapter (maybe one more, but probably this one), and then adding a collection of oneshots in this universe. Chris meeting the OS characters, maybe one where Spock and Bones talk about the whole Tarsus thing, maybe even a few Trasus IV flashbacks (though I'm actually thinking about making that it's own fic). I'd really love to know your thoughts on this, so please, please, please let me know what you think in the comments. 
> 
> Thanks, and I hope you liked this chapter :)


	10. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! So this is it for the main story, last chapter. If I get enough people wanting it I'll probably do a series of oneshots and/or short stories in this universe. Maybe a sequel. maybe. So please, please give me feedback on that and the story :)

Montgomery Scott had abandoned all sense of professionalism almost the instant he beamed aboard the new (old? Time travel. Bah) Enterprise. It wasn't because of his near death experience, though he had been rattled by that. It wasn't the shock of the startlingly young crew, though he did have to suppress the urge to ruffle the young Captain's fluffy blond hair. It wasn't even the shininess of this brand spanking out-on-her-maiden-voyage-and-banged-to-hell-but-still-gorgeous Enterprise, though that did very nearly bring tears to his eyes (It wasn't his Enterprise, he knew, but damn if the deck under his feet didn't have the same hum his Old Girl always had, even after she was rebuilt).

It wasn't even because of his (supposedly) long dead Captain (Monty knew that Jim was a admiral now, but he'd always be Capt'n to Monty), First Officer or CMO, and he was beyond ecstatic to see the tree of them again.

It was the sparkling brown eyes that greeted him after he noticed all of that. Sparkling brown eyes that, though he'd nevertheless tried everything and nearly gotten killed doing it, Monty had never, not truly, thought he'd ever see again.

She smiled. "Hi Monty."

And that was when Admiral Montgomery Scott, engineer extraordinaire, formerly of the craziest crew on the best ship in the galaxy, completely lost his cool.

He was walking down to the engine room now, arm in arm with his Nyota who'd pulled him along to see this after they'd finished kissing and crying and hugging the life out of each other, and after introductions and brief explanations had been had.

The Captain was with them, wanting to see this for himself, while Leonard had gone off with his younger counterpart, Nyota's (who'd looked completely baffled at Monty and his Nyota, he'd have to ask her about that later) and Jim's to see to a patient and Spock had gone off to talk with his younger self. On the way there, they filled him in on what had happened in a little more detail than he'd gotten in the transporter room.

Monty was caught halfway between being amazed at their younger counterparts and not surprised at all that they'd pulled this off, even in a different timeline. After all, the Enterprise crew was the Enterprise crew, no matter the universe and they specialized in the impossible. Monty just wished that Sulu and Chekov had gotten a ride here via insane space/time shenanigan to see this.

Jim left them at the engine room, saying that he wanted to go meet this timeline's version of Captain Pike, but Nyota followed him in to help.

The New-Old-Girl's engines had taken a beating, that was for sure, but she was still magnificent as ever. That bastard Nero had done his damage thoroughly though, so now Monty and his younger counterpart (with help from the surviving engineers and Monty's mini-me's strange little friend Keenser, whom they'd apparently picked up just before Monty and who seemed to climb up onto everything), had their hands more than full trying to get them home on impulse engines in one piece.

Monty's younger self was just as manic and brilliant as he'd ever been in his youth (though he wasn't sure what the ranting about sandwiches and beagles was about), and despite the pang that went through him at every scratch and scorch mark on the Silver Lady, working with his younger self was by far the best fun he'd had in years. He fully intended to show him the best places to hide a still when everyone got a moment to breathe.

Nyota was working too, collaborating with her own younger counterpart to get communications up and running at capacity again so that Star-Fleet could be contacted and briefed on what had happened. Every now and then, he'd glance over at her and see her smiling softly at him, eyes grinning right along with her mouth. She was older than she had been when they'd done most of their adventuring yes, but then so was he, and he'd never thought her anything but beautiful. And now they had a whole new adventure to embark on, and Monty fully planned on doing it with her as his wife, should she agree to the proposal he didn't even have planned yet. He had time to figure it out now, time he'd thought lost forever, and there was no way he was wasting it.

He loved her, he knew that she loved him, and should she be amenable Monty fully intended on making an honest woman out of her with Admiral Kirk presiding, surrounded by their friends old, new, and complicated.

After hours and hours of making sure that the Enterprise wouldn't be blowing up in the near future, Monty left the engine room. Never more than after a long work day (or had it been longer than that? Monty wasn't sure) like this was he more aware that he was no longer as young as he once was. His back ached and his eyes stung, but he was still far happier than he'd been in a very long time. He was on the Not-So-Old-Yet Girl with Nyota and most their friends, and in Monty's book that counted for far more than what universe they happened to be in at the moment.

Nyota had left the engine room some hours earlier to do...something, he'd been in the middle of something when she'd gone and had only just managed to catch that she had something to do elsewhere before something had nearly explode and he'd been subsequently completely immersed in his work again. Monty had thought that by now she'd surely have found a bed somewhere and that he'd have to ask one of this insanely young crew where she might be found, and so was surprised, pleasantly so, when she came bounding down the corridor towards him.

"Monty, I was just coming to see if I could persuade you to take a break and come join us old folks to finally eat something!" She gave him a kiss and started to tug him along after her as if she was worried he'd remember some urgent improvement that he needed to turn back and implement and leave.

He laughed and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. "Lass, if Ah'd've stayed down there another minute Ah'd've dropped dead on the spot. Somethin' ta eat jus' now sounds lovely."

She beamed at him and led him on to one of the smaller rec rooms where Doc McCoy, Spock, and Jim were waiting for them, Jim with a twinkle in his eye that Monty knew all too well.

"So, Scotty," he said leaning on the table with his elbows, "How'd you like to find out what happens when one meddles like an old man?"

Monty laughed, and despite his ached and pains threw himself down into an empty chair with all the reckless abandon of himself in his youth. "Where do we start?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, pretty short, but seeing as it's the epilogue, I hope y'all can forgive me that. :) To be perfectly honest I was going to leave it at the last chapter, but y'all wanted Old Scotty, so I figured 'Why not?'
> 
> If you want more of this universe in the form or oneshots and/or a sequel PLEASE LET ME KNOW! And if you have any suggestions for any of said one shots ALSO PLEASE LET ME KNOW!
> 
> I hope you guys have liked this story, I had fun writing it :)

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you guys had, and will have fun reading this :)


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